The Easily Solved Version of Depression
by Areli-Kokuchi
Summary: Uther wouldn't look at him anymore, and Morgana no longer looked at him with contempt, but with barely concealed pity, Gwen's hesitant smiles came more often, but they no longer held the same emotion . . .  full summary inside   tag: NaNoWriMo


Title:  
>Pairing: MerlinArthur  
>Rating:<br>Summary: _ Uther wouldn't look at him anymore, and Morgana no longer looked at him with contempt, but with barely concealed pity, Gwen's hesitant smiles came more often, but they no longer held the same emotion, but by far the worst change was Merlin. _What could've pushed Arthur to such an extreme?_  
><em>Spoilers:  
>Notes:<p>

Uther wouldn't look at him anymore, and Morgana no longer looked at him with contempt, but with barely concealed pity, Gwen's hesitant smiles came more often, but they no longer held the same emotion, but by far the worst change was Merlin. Merlin, whose aimless chatter had increased tenfold, but all insults and playful jibes had stopped altogether. Merlin, who, after stopping complaining about his workload, was making Arthur feel inexplicably guilty every time he asked him to do something.

The build up was a hazy time in his memory. He remembered a building darkness inside him, and a desperation to let it out. On more than one occasion, he had ridden out as far into the woods as he could while still being able to return that day simply to stand and scream and shout and cry. It gave him a similar feeling of release that sword fighting did, but with fighting it had reached the point where he was no longer attempting to defend himself, and raining hit after hit down on his opponent. The fighting method was injuring knights and endangering Arthur, and so he had been told to stop. There were also memories of blood, coupled with the feeling of release that came with the sword fighting and the screaming.

And then, one day, on a ride, he had arrived at the lake. There was a memory begging his attention that had something to do with the lake, but he couldn't grab hold of it properly. He remembered the water closing over his head, and the inability to draw a breath. He remembered a darkness leaning forward to claim him, the edges of his vision slipping away, and a sense of peace. He had suddenly been very attracted to that memory of peace. He hadn't felt like that in any other memory he could dredge up, and was desperate to feel it again.

It was like a trance, he couldn't think of anything else, only the water that slowly climbed his body and lapped at his chin, then his mouth, then his nose. He fell to his knees underwater and sighed.

And he had gained the peace he was searching for and the darkness was setting in and then . . .

When he woke up, things seemed . . . sharper than he remembered them. The posts of his bed had dragons carved into them, and the blanket over his bed had been weaved into raised plaits.

Gaius' face had little lines between his eyebrows.

The fur lining the top of his blanket was ruffled slightly the wrong way near his arm.

Gaius' mouth was pursing.

"Sire," Gaius said as an entire sentence.

"Nnng," Arthur replied, which was shocking. Considering the amount of detail his brain was putting into seeing, it was unexpected that every other bodily function should not be in tip top condition.

"You have awakened, I must inform the King," Gaius informed Arthur.

"Go," Arthur tried to say.

"Gnnn," Arthur said. He groaned at his own faliure and rolled away from the light from the window and Gaius calm form. The was a very soft rustle as Gaius swept from the room.

Arthur tried to close his eyes but instead was greeted by intricate patterns behind his eyelinds that his brain insisted on cataloguing. He felt alive and brilliant and tired at the same time.

He ran his tongue around his mouth and swallowed a few times. He made some shapes with his lips, pursing and then moving as though he were drawing circles with an imaginary brush held between his teeth.

He then went on to test other bodily functions starting with his fingers as he tapped an invisible surface above his eyes and grasped at the dust floating in the air until he was sure he could control his fingers.

He sat up. He blinked.

The world inside his body was starting to feel as alive as the world he perceived. He rolled his shoulders. He was starting to feel rather good. He started rotating his ribs, feeling the pleasant feel of unstressed muscled beginning to work in his torso.

Arthur threw back the sheets and slid his legs from the bed slowly. He felt rather good but he wasn't going to risk falling like a fool.

Holding on to those bloody beautiful dragons on his bed post - was Uther aware of such celebrations of magic hidden around the castle? - he stood slowly, half expecting to fall at any moment. He didn't. It was pretty good. He relaxed his hand around the bed post and swung around it, all weight on the bed, like a child, to almost skip to the wardrobe.

He slipped out one of his softer shirts and leggings and enjoyed a slow shrug, strangely happy with being in his own body. It felt like he hadn't felt like this in ages, but the recent memories seemed slightly fussy - not at all like everything now. Ah well, he was probably still sleepy, he reasoned.

Arthur ignored the fact that everything else in his body was insisting that he was now fully awake. Worrying now felt like some kind of blasphemy. He could worry when everything wasn't so . . . satisfactory. It wasn't like today was an especially good day, he just completely and utterly content. Content. He took in a long breath and let it go. Gods, even breathing felt good.

The door to his chambers slammed open and Uther stormed in, followed by a stern Gaius and Merlin walking with a worried bounce in the balls of his feet.

Arthur snapped around, feeling a little resentful of the fact they were about to ruin the day, but maybe he could escape this conversation in a short enough amount of time to maintain some of it?

"Arthur," Uther said sternly.

"Father," Arthur replied, managing to keep most of the question out of the statement.

Merlin bounced worriedly in the background.

"What are you doing?" Uther demanded.

"Uh, getting dressed sire," Arthur ventured.

"What were you doing?" Uther demanded, even more demandingly.

"Doing when?" Arthur replied. Maybe this had something to do with . . . those things . . . that he didn't remember. What had happened recently? He hadn't felt good, because this content seemed new . . . what else?

"Doing in the lake?" Uther near screamed.

Merlin blinked several times and looked like he was about to run away.

Arthur almost rolled his eyes at Merlin, but another look at Uther's face told him that any sign of flippancy right now wouldn't be a good thing.

"I do apologise father, but I have no idea what you're talking about," Arthur replied. But . . . was that entirely the truth? Now that it was mentioned, there was a beautiful image of light coming down through the top of a lake - beautiful? What? It was a good memory, he thought. But that image . . . must involve drowning. Arthur felt his mouth tighten around his teeth at such a discomforting thought.

"Why did you have to be dragged from the lake half dead, Arthur?" Uther was sounding accusing, as though drowning would have somehow been Arthur's fault.

"I . . ." Arthur floundered. Then floundered some more. Then continued not to say anything.

This continued for some time.

Arthur was completely shocked inside - say something! Say something. Say something! But how on earth could he respond to such a ridiculous accusation. Which probably wasn't ridiculous because neither Merlin nor Gaius - the King's greatest anti-sicophants - were denying such a thing happened. But that didn't mean Arthur could remember any reason for such at thing to have happened and he didn't have enough information to make anything up.

He was still floundering, while his detail absorbing eyes took in the beauty of some of the engravings high up on the wall - were those giants? - and he became acutely aware of the breeze coming in from the door Uther had slammed open.

Uther eventually stormed from the room. Gaius stood silently for a few seconds - enough to make it awkward when he finally stepped back and followed the king to wherever he was storming to.

"Ah, good morning - sire," Merlin began, then tacked on a smile in a way reminiscent of his tacked on 'sire'.

"Is it, Merlin?" asked Arthur. His good mood had almost completely evaporated, but maybe he could improve the day. He sighed. Breathing no longer felt brilliant, but the movement of muscles still felt quite good, like he hadn't had exercise for long enough for it to feel like it was always descried the desire for certain herbs to be.

I think I may go train with the knights this morning," he informed Merlin, "there isn't anything state-wise scheduled for me to be doing instead is there?" He tried to imbue a sense of threat into his voice, in order to imply such duties should be cancelled. He didn't think Merlin got all the nuances to his princely orders most of the time.

But Merlin replied "No, we didn't expect you to be doing anything today. Sire."

"Brilliant," Arthur said with some satisfaction. "Get the knights to be on the field as soon as possible then come back and get me ready."


End file.
